♂Begat Eggleston

Begat Eggleston (baptised 20 February 1586/87 – 1 September 1674) was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut Colony, and the immigrant ancestor of the Eggleston family in New England, born at Settrington in Yorkshire, whose death the town recorded at “almost 100 years” old, although his baptism makes him eighty-seven. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son James Eggleston (died 1679).

Early life

The parish register of Settrington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, records the baptism on 20 February 1586/87 of “Bygod,” son of James Egleston; his father was buried there in 1613. His Christian name was the surname of the Bygods, the leading gentry family of the parish, and it was written in New England as Begat. A family history published in 1935 identifies this Bygod with the Windsor settler, and the rarity of the name supports it, though no record found so far states the link directly. Begat Eggleston was in New England by October 1630, when he asked to be made a freeman, and probably first lived at Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was made a freeman there in 1631. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony a freeman was not simply a man who was not a servant: he was an admitted member of the colony’s governing corporation, with the right to vote and to hold office, a status then open only to members of a Puritan church. He was an original member of the Reverend John Warham’s church, removing with it to Windsor, Connecticut, probably in 1635. Testifying at a court held in Hartford on 5 June 1645, he gave his age as fifty-five, which would place his birth about 1590, three years after the Settrington baptism. His given name appears in the records under a variety of spellings, among them Begat, Bagget, Bigat and Bygatt.

Marriage and family

Eggleston is said to have married twice. His first wife is not named in the records; a family compilation states that his second wife was Mary Talcott of Hartford, and suggests that a Mary Eggleston who died at Windsor on 8 December 1657 was probably his wife. Both claims rest on the compilation and have not been confirmed; the records do not say whether that entry is his daughter Mercy under another name (see Notes). No record indicates which wife was the mother of which child. In January 1659/60 he paid for a meeting-house seat at the rate set for “a man and his wife”, so a wife was probably living then.

Two sons, James and Samuel, were born in England before the family’s removal to Windsor. Seven more children were born at Windsor: Thomas (1638), Mercy (1641), Sarah (1643), Rebecca (1644), Abigail (1648), Joseph (baptized 1651) and Benjamin (1653). A further daughter, Mary, born about 1636, married John Denslow at Windsor, probably in 1655, and died in 1684.

Windsor

Eggleston held a run of lots in Windsor. In 1638 he was granted a lot on Backer Row. In 1647 he bought Thomas Nowell’s lot and house in the Palisado. In 1651 he bought back from Rhoda, the widow of John Taylor, the half-acre lot north of the green that he had first sold to Taylor, with its house. By 1654 he was the sole owner of his lot north of the meeting house. In 1662 he mortgaged his dwelling house, barn, home lot and orchard near the meeting house, to a lender whose name is not printed. In 1663 the town meeting let a shed for horses be built against his orchard fence.

Late in life he took on two jobs for the town. In May 1668, when he was in his eighties, he undertook to clean the meeting house for the coming year and to beat the drum that called people to meetings. A town account of debts for February 1668/9 shows the town owing him £3 10s “for 4 wolves, meeting house”, to be paid by rate.

Death

Eggleston made his will at Windsor on 13 November 1673, describing himself as “aged and weake.” He left his house and land to his son Benjamin, “ye staff of my age,” on condition that Benjamin maintain his mother for the rest of her life. He directed that his son Joseph, “should he return” to claim a portion, be paid forty shillings, a phrase that suggests Joseph had gone away and not been heard from, and left three shillings each to his sons James, Samuel and Thomas and his daughters Mary, Sarah and Abigail. He died at Windsor on 1 September 1674; the town’s vital records give his age at death as “almost 100 years,” though his baptism makes him eighty-seven and his own 1645 testimony about eighty-four; the ages of the very old were often rounded up in the records of the time. His estate was inventoried on 24 October 1674 at £116. In 1676 his widow contributed to Connecticut’s fund for the relief of the poor in other colonies.

He is said to be buried in the Palisado Cemetery at Windsor, where his name is on the Founders’ Monument; no individual stone is recorded for him.

Notes

The identity and order of Eggleston’s two wives, and which of his children each bore, are not established by any record found so far. The Windsor town history of 1891 names his first wife as Sarah Talcott, and a Mills family genealogy of 1963 calls his wife Mary Talcott; neither cites a record. An earlier suggestion that he came from Exeter is superseded by the Settrington baptism.

Two daughters named Mary

Anderson’s compiled history The Great Migration Begins (vol. I, pp. 622–624) places an older daughter, Mary, born about 1636, among the children of the second wife. She married John Denslow at Windsor on 7 June 1655, a date given by Barbour’s Windsor vital records and by Savage, and died in 1684. She is the Mary named with the other daughters in the will of 13 November 1673, which provides for “my Daughters Mary, Sarah & Abigail.” Stiles’s 1891 history of Windsor merged her with the daughter born 29 May 1641 under one name and one birth date; Hunt (1961) and Anderson keep the two apart.

Mercy and the entry of 8 December 1657

The daughter born 29 May 1641 is Mercy, written Marcy in the Windsor register (Matthew Grant’s Some Early Records, p. 35). Grant lists her among the deaths in the block that runs to 1657 (p. 82), while Hunt (1961) dates her death to 1655. Barbour’s Windsor vital records also print a Mary who died at Windsor on 8 December 1657, which Stiles took to be probably his wife. The records do not say whether that entry is Mercy under another name, so it is not used for her date, and it does not settle the wife’s identity.

Windsor land

The lot and house entries come from Stiles’s The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut (1891), a compiled source. The 1638 lot on Backer Row was 14½ rods wide from the Palisado road; he later sold it to Nicholas Hoyt. The 1647 purchase was Thomas Nowell’s lot and house, east of the Taylor lot. The 1651 buy-back was the half-acre Palisado lot north of the Green, with a one-rod road between it and the Elias Parkman lot. Stiles gives his sole ownership of the lot north of the meeting house in 1654, on the town’s Plan of 1654. The 1662 mortgage covers “my now dwelling house, barn, &c., home lot and orchard, situate near the meeting-house,” and the mortgagee is not named in print. The shed entry of 1663 comes from Stiles’s History of Ancient Windsor (1859), which gives no year beside it; the year is taken from the run of entries around it, so it is probable only.

Town service and the seat rate

Stiles’s History of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut (1859) gives the three town entries, all compiled. On 18 January 1659/60 he paid 6s for seats in the long seats of the meeting house, at the rate “for a man and his wife.” On 16 May 1668 the town agreed that he would clean the meeting house for the coming year for 50s and beat the drum for meetings for 28s, from the Town Acts, book ii, where he is entered as “Baggot Egleston.” The account of town debts of 15 February 1668/9 shows £3 10s owed to him “for 4 wolves, meeting house,” to be paid by rate. The record dates this by its double year, 1668/9, which is 1669 by the modern count.

The will

The will of 13 November 1673 opens “I Bigat Egllstone of Windsor” and is signed “Beget Egleston.” The original is in the Hartford Probate District packet no. 1830 (Windsor, 1674), and it carries witnesses’ signatures. Manwaring’s A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records, vol. I, abstracts the same will.

Burial

A Find a Grave memorial (35817808), a compiled source, gives his burial at the Palisado Cemetery, Windsor, where he is named on the Founders’ Monument. The monument names the founders; no individual stone is recorded.